Principal allegedly created fake Facebook identity to befriend students

Rosa Golijan/msnbc.com

By Rosa Golijan

Considering that school districts around the country are developing social media guidelines and specifying that teachers shouldn't "friend" students on Facebook?at all, one would assume that it's obvious that teachers also shouldn't "friend" students on Facebook using fake identities.

Well ... we all know what happens when we assume.?

Jessica Bock?of STLtoday reports that Dr. Louise Losos ??the principal of Clayton High School in?Clayton, MO?? has resigned from her position after?a former student alleged that she'd been adding students as Facebook friends using a false identity.

"Whoever is friends with Suzy Harriston on Facebook needs to drop them. It is the Clayton Principal," a post in a public Facebook group declared at the beginning of April. Harriston, whose profile showed a photo of penguins and that she had more than 300 friends (many of them from Clayton High School) vanished from Facebook almost immediately following that claim.

"[A]?search of public records in Missouri found no results for anyone named 'Suzy Harriston,'" Bock points out.?And the school district "confirmed that no student by the name of Suzy Harriston was enrolled at the high school in the last two years."

The day after the allegation and mysterious disappearance, Losos took a leave of absence. Several weeks later, she handed in a resignation.?

Chris Tennill, Chief Communications Officer for the School District of Clayton, couldn't elaborate on the alleged connection between Losos and the mysterious Suzy Harriston who'd been friending Clayton students, but he did confirm that Losos "has resigned as Clayton High School Principal effective June 30, 2012." She will remain on a leave of absence "for personal reasons" until that time.

He added that the School District of Clayton and Losos had "had a fundamental dispute concerning the appropriate use of social media" and provided me with a link to the district's?Employee-Student Handbook.?

While the handbook does not appear to address social media specifically, it does have a section dedicated to electronic communications between staff and students:

Staff members may use electronic communication with students only as frequently as necessary to accomplish an educational purpose.? Communication for an educational purpose would include communications related to a staff member?s position, including but not limited to teaching, counseling, athletics, extracurricular activities, treatment of a student?s physical injury, or other purposes related to a staff member?s job duties. [...]?The district discourages staff members from communicating with students electronically for reasons other than educational purposes.

It's possible that the disappearance of Suzy?Harriston?? who only seems to have existed online?? and Dr. Louise Losos' social media-related resignation coincidentally happened in the same timeframe. But if we apply?Occam's razor?and consider that?the simplest explanation tends to be the best one, odds are that the principal had been covertly befriending students on Facebook?? without letting them know who she is.

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Want more tech news, silly puns, or amusing links? You'll get plenty of all three if you keep up with Rosa Golijan, the writer of this post, by following her on?Twitter, subscribing to her?Facebook?posts, or circling her?on?Google+.

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GOP leaders start to rally around Romney _ sort of

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Republican party leaders are starting to rally around Mitt Romney, but it's not exactly a stampede of support for the expected GOP presidential nominee.

With Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich out of the race, Romney is his party's pick to take on President Barack Obama this fall, barring a catastrophe. While Romney talks like the nominee, the former Massachusetts governor has work to do to round up enough convention delegates to make it official.

Romney has 856 delegates, according to The Associated Press count. That's 288 short of the 1,144 he needs to win the nomination. Romney could get about 100 delegates from Tuesday's primaries in North Carolina, Indiana and West Virginia, if he dominates the voting in all three states.

But unless he persuades a lot more Santorum and Gingrich delegates to switch allegiances, Romney might not clinch until the Texas primary May 29. On Sunday, Romney lost 11 delegates to Texas Rep. Ron Paul when Paul's supporters won control of the Maine GOP convention and elected Paul delegates to the party's national convention.

Romney is "the projected candidate," said Peggy Lambert, a member of the Republican National Committee from Tennessee who endorsed Romney last week. "Let's go ahead and get this thing over with. Let's get as many delegates as we can."

Santorum and Gingrich have said they will help Romney defeat Obama, but neither has released his delegates to vote for Romney at the national convention in August. Santorum has 257 delegates and Gingrich has 130. In interviews during the past week, many delegates said they were reluctant to back Romney without guidance from their former candidates.

Paul is the only other Republican still in the race, and he has 94 delegates.

Many committee members are getting behind Romney, though some are half-hearted about it. These party leaders ? three from each state and U.S. territory ? automatically attend the national convention and, in most states, can support any candidate they choose.

They will be asked to donate, volunteer and work for Republican candidates up and down the ticket, making their support for Romney an important barometer of enthusiasm and unity among GOP loyalists.

"I think the process has narrowed down and we've got a chance to hear all the candidates and all the debate," said Jonathan Barnett, an RNC member from Arkansas who serves in the state Legislature. "Really, he's pretty much the only one left standing. It's time to get on board."

Alabama GOP chairman Bill Armistead sounded more enthusiastic. He said he's recruiting volunteers to help Romney in Florida, where the race will be much closer than in Alabama.

"The No. 1 objective of the people I talk to is to defeat Barack Obama," Armistead said.

The RNC has 168 members. Some are required to support the candidate who wins the primary in their state. The AP has identified 120 who are free to support any candidate they choose, regardless of the primaries.

Romney has endorsements from 57 of them, according to the AP's latest survey, conducted in the past week after Gingrich's plans to leave the race became public. Paul has one endorsement, while 60 RNC members are holding off on endorsing anyone, even with the race essentially decided. (Two RNC spots won't be filled until June.)

Some RNC members say they have yet to endorse Romney because of local concerns.

Kentucky GOP chairman Steve Robertson said he isn't endorsing anyone out of deference to Paul's son, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky. In Oregon, Nebraska and New Mexico, RNC members say they won't endorse anyone before their states' primaries, which have yet to be held.

Back when the primary race was competitive, some RNC members questioned Romney's conservative credentials. In the latest survey, no RNC member was willing to say he or she had a problem with him.

But Richard Giessel, a Santorum delegate in Alaska, wasn't shy about his disdain for Romney, calling him "a big government guy."

"We've got too big a government now," said Giessel, who said he now plans to support Ron Paul.

Romney added 22 RNC endorsements since the last AP survey in early April, and he has support from every region of the country. None of Romney's rivals was able to gain much traction among the RNC delegates. Gingrich had four endorsements at one point, more than any of the others.

Drew Johnson, a Gingrich delegate from South Carolina, said he thinks the state's delegates will unite behind Romney. South Carolina, a solidly Republican state, was one of only two states Gingrich won in the primaries.

"Romney has my endorsement and he can count on South Carolina to be one of his biggest cheering sections at the national convention," said Johnson, who leads the Chester County Republicans. "My focus is crystal clear for the upcoming election. We will be making calls to any state it is needed and even send South Carolina activists to real swing states to defeat Obama."

___

Associated Press writers Erik Schelzig in Nashville, Tenn.; Andrew DeMillo in Little Rock, Ark.; Phillip Rawls in Montgomery, Ala.; Becky Bohrer in Juneau, Alaska; Meg Kinnard in Columbia, S.C.; Kristen Wyatt in Denver, Colo., and Glenn Adams in Augusta, Maine, contributed to this report.

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Couple in Illinois Ponzi scheme caught in Arizona

TONOPAH, Ariz. (AP) ? An Illinois couple who spent a dozen years on the run after fleeing a conviction for running a Ponzi scheme has been captured in a small community west of Phoenix, the U.S. Marshals Service said Sunday.

Nelson Grant Hallahan, 65, and wife Janet Hallahan, 54, were arrested by deputy marshals Saturday afternoon in Tonopah, a desert community 50 miles west of Phoenix.

Matt Hershey, a supervisory deputy U.S. Marshal, said the Hallahans were living apart and were arrested at separate homes.

The agency said it received a tip about their location after they were featured on "America's Most Wanted" the previous night.

The couple pleaded guilty in Illinois federal court to bank and mail fraud conspiracy charges and money laundering. They didn't show up for their sentencing and have been fugitives ever since.

The Hallahans lived in Peoria, Ill., and targeted family, friends and elderly victims by promising significant returns on investments. They also defrauded investors by selling interests in a tanning salon they later sold without telling investors. They were actually running a Ponzi scheme, repaying earlier investors with proceeds from new ones.

The couple used the money they stole to live a lavish lifestyle, buying yachts, luxury vehicles, designer clothes and jewelry, according to the Marshals Service.

According to a profile on the AMW website, Nelson Hallahan was a successful life insurance salesman. Janet Hallahan was his assistant and secretary, and the couple married in 1988.

Teresa Allred, 63, said she and her husband went to dinner with the Hallahans several times and had considered them friends.

They gave the Hallahans $15,000 to buy more tanning beds for the salon. Allred, who lives with her husband just outside Peoria in Morton, Ill., said the Hallahans promised them a 10 percent interest rate on the investment. But they never saw the money again.

"With friends like that, who needs enemies?" she said.

The Hallahans owed nearly $1.2 million to investors when they disappeared just days before they were to be sentenced in January 2000.

"The 12-year run from justice of the Hallahans, also known as the 'Mini Madoffs,' has come to an end," U.S. Marshal for Arizona David Gonzales said in a statement. "Their investment scams involving family, friends, and the elderly, ruined many lives."

The couple was arrested without incident. It's believed they've been in Arizona for about two years.

"I'm just glad that they've been found," Allred said. "We may or may not see our money, but at least I feel like there's a little bit of restitution."

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Kris Humphries to Kim Kardashian: Give Me My Ring!

Note to Kim Kardashian: you can keep the bondage boots. But please give me my crazy expensive ring back.

That's the gist of Kris Humphries' demands, a source says, as these two ballers (him in the NBA, her in... you get it) continue to battle it out in divorce court.

"Kris wants the [engagement] ring back because the marriage only lasted 72 days and he believes it was based on fraud and deceit," an insider tells Radar Online. "Remember, Kim filed for divorce. Kris paid for that ring, and he just can't fathom why Kim would want to keep it."

That would be a reasonable point... if E! clearly did not pay for the ring.

Last week, Kardashian's attorney was in court, trying to end the legal maneuvering by both parties. She claims the divorce is still not finalized because Humphries is dragging it out on purpose in a desperate attention to garner headlines.

If true, hmmmm, we wonder from where he would have learned such a thing.

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Are You Moving Too Fast with PR and SEO? | Small Business Guide ...

Today, the world of public relations (PR) and search engine optimization (SEO) runs at the speed of light. You need to write, optimize, send, and monitor press releases quickly to keep up with news and the competition. In addition, your site needs to have the right SEO keywords and coding in place to be noticed by your target market online.

It can be a whirlwind of activity. But be careful?

Don?t Move Too Fast with Your PR and SEO Efforts.

As you rush to get everything done in a timely matter, there are a few things to keep in mind:

Take a moment before starting.

Once your discover that you need to prepare a PR or SEO document within a short amount of time, take a moment to review what you are trying to accomplish.

What is the call-to-action for this project, and what do you want your target market to do when they read it? By taking this step, you?ll be able to work towards a goal and have a better chance of achieving it.

Have someone else review your work.

Even if you have proofread your press release for errors, read it aloud to hear the tone and checked the SEO-keyword density and copy, have someone else review your work.

Since you are close to the project and moving fast to meet deadlines, it always helps to have another set of eyes review your work.

When you are finished distributing your press release, posting some SEO copy or writing another marketing or PR piece, look at the results. What happened? Did you meet the goal for that project?

Write down your statistics from Google Analytics. Did Website hits increase? Are the search engines finding your site? Did your press release get picked up on media site?

Then, review this data before you start a new project. What can you do differently to get better results this time? Perhaps, you reached your goal and need to follow the same process, but you?ll never know unless you monitor results and take action on them.

Timing Is Important, But So Are PR And SEO Results!

It?s essential to move quickly with your SEO and PR activities in order to compete and distribute current news about your business in a timely fashion. But in the process, don?t forget to review what you are trying to accomplish, check for mistakes and monitor results. This way, you?ll be able to meet deadlines, provide accurate information, and successfully meet goals.

Do you need help with your SEO and PR copy? Please write to me below or at www.rembrandtwrites.com.

Next: eBay, Amazon, Mobile, e-Commerce, and Stripping.

View the original article here

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This is a debate? Mexico's presidential face-off a scripted affair.

Mexico's presidential debate was highly structured and scripted last night, leaving little room for candid conversation on important policies like security and education.

The front-runner in Mexico's presidential race, Enrique Pe?a Nieto, might have movie star looks and a seemingly unbeatable lead ahead of the July 1 election, but he also has a knack for gaffes when straying from the script.

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So if anything is his to lose, it is the presidential debates, the first of which took place last night in Mexico City.

His opponents tried to put him on the spot: They attacked his term as governor in the state of Mexico, and suggested that if he won, the country would return to corruption and cronyism.? His party, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), ruled Mexico for 71 years, and is believed to have made pacts with drug cartels as part of their governing strategy.

But it appears that Mr. Pe?a Nieto held his own. He made no major fumbles that could go viral across social media, contrary to his December slip-up at a book fair when he was unable to cite any books, beyond the Bible, that influenced him.

But this probably has less to do with a new-found skill to talk off the cuff. Instead, the debate itself was highly structured, lending itself to the kinds of scripting that serves Pe?a Nieto well. All four presidential candidates agreed to the format beforehand, and in fact, they even knew which questions would be asked of them. Each candidate had two minutes to respond, and 90 seconds for a rebuttal.

As a result, instead of a lengthy, dynamic conservation that could push the agenda forward on the economy, security, and education, last night's debate was mostly an evening for candidates to articulate their positions (again), peppering them with attacks and counter-attacks.

?Everyone talked about what they wanted,? says Aldo Mu?oz, a political analyst at Mexico State's Autonomous University. ?None of the issues were talked about with profundity. So the one who wins the debate is the one who was ahead in the first place.?

And that means that Mr. Pe?a Nieto remains clearly out in front.

Josefina V?zquez Mota of the ruling National Action Party (PAN) has, according to most polls, been at a distant second throughout the race, and she has focused on undermining Pe?a Nieto's lead. Ms. V?zquez Mota pulled out an article by The Economist last night that questioned the veracity of statistics on homicides during Pe?a Nieto's time as governor in the state of Mexico.

She emphasized that as the country's first woman president she would represent a turn towards a more honest and sensitive government.

?I want to be president because I have the sensitivity, as a woman, to listen,? she said.

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Keeping obesity rates level could save nearly $550 billion over 2 decades

ScienceDaily (May 7, 2012) ? Researchers have forecast the cost savings and rise in obesity prevalence over the next two decades in a new public health study.

"Keeping obesity rates level could yield a savings of nearly $550 billion in medical expenditures over the next two decades," according to lead author Eric Finkelstein, PhD, associate research professor in the Duke Global Health Institute, as well as deputy director in the Health Services Research Program at Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School in Singapore.

The forecasting study also found that 42 percent of the U.S. population could be obese by 2030.

The findings suggest the U.S. health care system could be burdened with 32 million more obese people within two decades. Action is needed to keep rates from increasing further, according to the research from Duke University, RTI International, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The study, based on data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System and state-level data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and other organizations, was published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine on May 7.

The study also forecasts an increase in the number of individuals with severe obesity, with rates rising to 11 percent by 2030. Severe obesity is defined as a body mass index over 40 or roughly 100 pounds overweight.

Severely obese individuals are at highest risk for the health conditions caused by excess weight, resulting in substantially greater medical expenditures and rates of absenteeism.

"Should these forecasts prove accurate, the adverse health and cost consequences of obesity are likely to continue to escalate without a significant intervention," notes senior author Justin Trogdon, PhD, of RTI.

The study was released May 7 at CDC's Weight of the Nation conference in Washington, D.C.

"We know more than ever about the most successful strategies that will help Americans live healthier, more active lives and reduce obesity rates and medical costs," said William H. Dietz, MD, PhD, director of CDC's Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity and Obesity.

"People need to make healthy choices, but the healthy choices must first be available and accessible in order to make them," Dietz said. "In the coming days at our Weight of the Nation conference, CDC and its partners will emphasize the proven, effective strategies and solutions that must continue to be applied to help make the healthy choice the easy choice."

On May 8, a set of potential solutions will be released at the CDC conference. The Institute of Medicine will issue a new report, "Accelerating Progress in Obesity Prevention: Solving the Weight of the Nation," which provides the results of a comprehensive review of obesity prevention-related recommendations. The report will identify strategies and action steps that have the greatest potential to speed up progress in combating the obesity crisis.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Duke University Medical Center.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. Eric A. Finkelstein et al. Obesity and Severe Obesity Forecasts through 2030. American Journal of Preventative Medicine, 2012 DOI: 10.1016/j.amepre.2011.10.026

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

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